“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.”

I am pleased and reassured by the fact that a lot of younger playwrights seem to pay me some attention and gain some nourishment from what I do.

The act of creation, as you very well know, is a lonely and private matter and has nothing to do with the public area… the performance of the work one creates.

A playwright has a responsibility in his society not to aid it, or comfort it, but to comment and criticize it.

Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process–it is, after all, black magic.

In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

I have been both overpraised and under praised. I assume by the time I finish writing — and I plan to go on writing until I’m 90 or gaga it will all equal itself out.

Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that’s what I like about you most. Your anger.

Your source material is the people you know, not those you don’t know, but every character is an extension of the author’s own personality.

It always seems to me better to slough off the answer to a question that I consider to be a terrible invasion of privacy – the kind of privacy that a writer must keep for himself.

I think I was probably wondering, having looked at human beings for a long time, wondering if evolution ever took place. And I still have my doubts.

Musical beds is the faculty sport around here.

Progress is a set of assumptions.

A writer is a controlled schizophrenic.

I suppose, writing a play is finding out what the play is.

People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them ‘all of my life.’

I am sick of the disparity between things as they are and as they should be. I’m tired.I’m tired of the truth and I’m tired of lying about the truth.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

let us call it thus, is considered to be archaic or old-fashioned, as though in a way there existed no other definition of what it means to be modern than.

I like the theatre because you paint with broad strokes. To me the theatre is stretching its definition really far.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.

Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability I’ve had to confront is the world ever thinking that I could be described by those definitions.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate [the two] is itself a very political intention.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people.

Someone once told me the definition of hell; on your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became.